White-tailed Kite on the Tuolumne River Bluffs

I had quite a surprise the other day while wandering through my usual haunts along the Tuolumne River in Waterford. I was having a relatively good birding day with more than twenty species sighted, although no new ones were noted. I struggled up the stairway (135 steps; it's a new favorite exercise spot in my town) and got in the car to go home when I noticed a large bird over the fallow cornfield at the north end of the parking lot.

It was white...and it was kiting! Kiting in this case does not involve bouncing checks (a fraud from the earlier non-digital banking days), but instead involves hovering, or gliding in place over a field, waiting for a rodent to make the wrong move. Northern Harriers do this to an extent, but the experts are the White-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus). They are found in the westernmost states of California, Oregon and Washington, but they are not at all common (Texas hosts a few but most are in Mexico and Central America). I've only seen three of them so far in my travels, and this one was the first I've seen near the Tuolumne River.

The Kite never landed (I wasted about 25 digital images trying to get the few slightly sharp photos seen above), and eventually it flew off to the north. In case you want to know what they look like on the ground, here is a shot I got last November on Milnes Road while commuting to work. I was as surprised as the bird was when I hit the brakes.

Great Egret on the Tuolumne River Bluffs

Great Egrets (Ardea alba) are relatively common sights in our region on the floor of California's Great Valley. The pastures and riparian woodlands are ideal habitat for them, but for whatever reason I don't see a great many of them on my Tuolumne River walks. There is occasionally one hanging out on the river just downstream of the west end stairway up the bluffs, and sometimes I see one near the highway bridge. The last few times I've been down to the river, there has been one perched on the telephone pole at Reinway Park. I love their graceful posing, so I snapped shots on two different days, one of them at sunset. I'm presuming it is the same bird.

Northern Flicker on the Tuolumne River Bluffs (along with an Acorn Woodpecker)

I was out walking on the Tuolumne River as usual this morning, and saw practically no birds until I finished and had returned to the parking area at the top of the bluffs at the west end of the hike. I was actually driving out when I saw a different bird atop the nearly dead oak (it was a Mockingbird earlier). It was a male Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus).

It didn't immediately fly away, since I was using the car as a blind. I snapped a couple of pictures, and then noticed a second woodpecker a few yards away. That was odd, because it was a different species, an Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus). I guess it was just kind of a woodpecker day.

Western Kingbird on the Tuolumne River

Western Kingbirds (Tyrannus verticalis) make quite a few appearances on my blog. I think it is because they are a migrant, and their appearance and disappearance coincides with the change of seasons (they spend winters in the tropics). There is nothing so special as a change of seasons in today's post, just what I thought was a pretty nice picture. I've been sticking to my commitment to walk nearly every day, and put in three miles along the Tuolumne River. In contrast to yesterday's cornucopia of interesting species, today I saw nothing of particular interest. Yesterday's Kingfishers, for instance, were nowhere to be seen, and neither were the Red Foxes. I got back up the stairwell at the parking area, and in fine OCD manner saw that I had taken 5,063 steps, and I could make it a nice even 5,280 (three miles) if I did a lap around the parking lot. So I did, and finally saw an interesting bird in one of the trees lining the parking area.

Female Black-chinned Hummingbird and Bonus Furry Animal on the Tuolumne River

Go figure. I identified a Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) for the first time only last Sunday (posted here), and four days later I go walking on a different part of the Tuolumne River, and I see another one, a female this time. A typical case of "you see the things you know; and miss the things you don't know".

I was checking out the progress of the Tuolumne River Parkway trail in Waterford, and was walking down the road to the wastewater treatment facility when I saw it on a large shrub with flowers clearly designed for hummingbirds. I don't know if it is a native species or not, but the flowers are perfectly shaped for hummingbird beaks.

The trail is coming along at a nice pace. It may be completed by October 1st according to the employee I spoke to. I was able to follow the entire path from the treatment plant to the base of the bluffs of the future park that I visit so often, although there is no surfacing on the path yet. The trail will be a delight when it is finished. It will follow the banks of the Tuolumne River from Appling (or River) Park on the east end of town, to South Reinway Park (the park that doesn't actually exist yet) on the west end, a distance of about two miles. It's marvelous that someone is finally recognizing the value of the river to the community.

As for your bonus mammal: as I was taking pictures at the downstream end of the trail, and some movement on the face of the bluff caught my eye. It was a Gray Fox coming down the cliff with lunch in its mouth. As best I can tell, it was a possum, but I'm not sure.

It stopped and checked me out for a moment, then ran down into the willows by the river.

Black-chinned Hummingbird on the Tuolumne Bluffs

It's been awhile since I've posted any birds. I was on a series of trips that extended from Canada almost to Mexico, and I found limited time for blogging. I also had trouble coming up with something as dramatic as my last post here, the life and death struggle between the Great Blue Herons and Bald Eagles at Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, B.C. It was the most-viewed post on this site ever that didn't have the world "rumped" in it (really, one can't count all the people who clicked on the Yellow-rumped Warbler as being birdwatchers). In any case, I'm trying to get back to some normal posting, and my walk this morning gave me the inspiration. I actually saw a totally new species in my neighborhood (keep in mind that it doesn't mean a rare species; I'm still catching up with the list of common species around here). It was a Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) at the future park on the bluffs over the Tuolumne River in Waterford.

I actually thought it was a big moth at first. It was on a bush just below the bluff's edge, and it was fluttering a bit differently than I expect hummingbirds to do. For one, it wasn't going for flowers; it was flying out into the void for a moment and returning. Once I realized it was a hummingbird, I realized it was going after insects, which you can see swarming in the picture below.

Anna's Hummingbirds tend to be the default species around here (we actually have five species in the area, so I have some catching up to do). I was surprised when I saw a flash of bright blue on the throat of the today's bird; it was something new. I tried to catch it in the photos, but as the guides say, it's only visible from some angles. I don't like the fuzziness of the photo below, but it's the best shot of the throat that I was able to get.

Western Bluebird Family at the Tuolumne River Bluffs

I was home briefly from my travels (a situation that will be rectified very soon as we hit the road tomorrow), and I wanted to see who was out and about at the future Tuolumne Bluffs Park in Waterford. I saw two kinds of woodpecker, but couldn't get adequate shots of them, but as I was leaving I saw three birds on the wires above. They seemed to be different from each other, and upon closer inspection they were, but the difference was from age and gender, not species.

All three birds were Western Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana), but only one of them was clearly blue from the view I had, the male. I don't know that it was specifically a family grouping, but three birds in close proximity like this made it seem likely. The female is above, and the juvenile is in the picture below.

I hadn't been to the future park in more than a month, so there were some big changes. The groundbreaking ceremony for the park took place about two weeks ago, and graders have begun leveling the dirt parking area on the bluff. I am feeling ambiguous about the park in the sense that they will be paving over what had once been an open field, but they don't seem hell-bent on destroying the old trees yet, and the finished park will provide access to the river trail via a metal stairwell. The walk will follow the Tuolumne River upstream for two miles to Appling Park, and I am really looking forward to some explorations along that route when it is finished.

Red-tailed Hawk on the Tuolumne River (And Yosemite, too)

There is a dead snag above the Tuolumne River near the bluffs of the future river walk park. I have to give it a look every time I wander by because there seems to be a different bird perched there every time. Sometimes a Starling, or a Magpie, and once a Turkey Vulture. On Monday it was a Red-tailed Hawk.

Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) are sometimes described as the "default" choice when trying to identify an unknown raptor. They are common all across North America, and are often the most common raptor species in a given area. Just to make things confusing, they come in a variety of colors, or morphs. One variation is leucistic, almost pure white!

I only got  the one picture that day, but I decided to check the archives for a few other shots, and I was reminded of an extraordinary day in 2010 in Yosemite National Park. It was before my official birding days, but I was always paying attention if they happened to be close by. There was a rockfall off of El Capitan that day that I witnessed, and there was a Red-tailed Hawk in a tree near Sentinel Dome that didn't mind at all our efforts at photography.

I rarely ever think of hawks as slightly comical looking, but cross-eyed does it for me...

Western Bluebirds at the Tuolumne River Bluffs

Western Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) run hot and cold on my walks. Sometimes weeks will pass and I won't see any at all, and then I'll see several of them within a day's time, and in multiple locations. In a matter of weeks I expect that most of them will start moving up into the Sierra Nevada foothills and on into the higher forests.

These individuals were lurking around the area I call the Tuolumne River Bluffs, a future park set on the hills overlooking the Tuolumne River in the edge-of-the-foothills town of Waterford. There are some old trees, oak and walnut, lining the bluffs. I also see the birds fairly often on my college campus, but I've had less time these days to look in on them. The end of the semester is looming; lots of work piling up, and then onto delayed projects at home and office.

A less brightly colored female

Tree Swallows on the Tuolumne River: You See What You Know...

In my usual life as a geologist and professor, I often describe to my students the secret of mineral or fossil hunting: once you've seen something, however difficult to see, you'll start seeing it everywhere. I've spent my entire first year and a half as an amateur birder, and in that time I never saw or noticed the Tree Swallows that live in our area. Barn Swallows, yes. Violet-green Swallows, sure, but never the Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor).

But then we took a walk on Friday evening through the Joe Domecq Wilderness Park on the Tuolumne River, and I saw a pair of unfamiliar swallows in an old snag and got a few pictures. A short while later I discovered it was a Tree Swallow. 

So here it is on Monday, and I take a walk down to the Tuolumne River bluffs at the future park in Waterford, and there is another Tree Swallow in an old snag, hunkered down in the heavy winds. It was kind enough to let me get a couple of close-ups before wandering off. 

Tree Swallows range all the way from Central America to northern Alaska, and are more tolerant of cold temperatures than other swallow species (when their preferred food of bugs aren't available, they'll switch to plants). They arrive from their migrations sooner than the others, and with global warming, they have been nesting nine days earlier than they used to. Sibley's guide suggests that they are year-round residents in the Great Valley. So why haven't I seen them until now?

Swainson's Hawk on the Tuolumne River

I was out for one of my walks today, checking for any bird activity along the Tuolumne River bluffs in Waterford. There were some Magpies and Western Bluebirds here and there, but as I was staring off in the distance, some kind of hawk flew right overhead, so I pulled up the camera to try and get a decent close shot. I didn't, and while I was still fumbling with the camera, a second hawk flew overhead, and I didn't get a shot of it either!

After a few minutes I found them again flying over a cottonwood tree down on the Tuolumne River and I realized they were at a nest. I caught a few very long range shots with which I hoped to identify them, because I could see it was not one of the usual species I've been seeing. The white pattern on the wings was clearly different from a Red-tail or Red-shouldered Hawk.

I cropped and magnified the best one and identified it as a Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swainsoni). That would explain why I haven't seen them around much, as the Swainson's Hawks typically spend their winters in Argentina. They have one of the longest migrations of any raptor, from Argentina to as far north as Alaska and northern Canada. It is apparently an awesome sight to catch the migration, as they travel in flocks hundreds or thousands strong.

In any case, I figured out where the nest was, and took another very long range shot. One of these times I'll try and walk along the river and see if I can see any little ones as season progresses.

I didn't think I had any good pictures of a Swainson's Hawk, but I checked the archives and realized I had in fact caught a pretty clear shot of one over the cow pasture near my house last June, so that became the opening picture in today's post.

Western Kingbird on the bluffs above the Tuolumne River

I wandered out to the future river park in Waterford today, and saw my first Western Kingbird of the season. They spend their winters in Central America and migrate north to breed across the western United States. I saw quite a few of them last year, so I've been watching for their return.

The Kingbirds are in the flycatcher family, and like to spend time in open fields with high perches. They'll dive down to capture bugs on the fly. They are very territorial during the breeding season, sometimes chasing away much larger birds like Kestrels and Hawks.

From its appearance here, it looked like it was about to chase me off! Or yawning...